Most wine brands start with a vineyard and a bank loan. L’uva Bella started with buckets of juice in a garage in Lowellville, Ohio, and a man named Frank Sergi who wanted to sell winemaking juice to his neighbors. That was 2006. Almost twenty years later the same company runs a tasting room, a bistro, a commercial wine services operation, and four separate labels that turn up on retail shelves across a growing list of states. Forbes has reported the brands in more than 5,500 stores.

The juice came first

Frank and Ruth Sergi built the early business around something a lot of people outside Northeast Ohio forget, which is that home winemaking never really went away there. Italian families in the Mahoning Valley have been pressing their own for generations, and somebody has to supply the fruit. Selling fresh juice to those families turned into selling juice across state lines. Over roughly ten years Frank and Ruth grew a garage operation into a blending and packaging facility moving winemaking juice into ten states through wholesale partners.

The juice side never got shelved either. You can still order winemaking juice from the company, which is unusual for a winery that also holds national retail distribution. Details are on the L’uva Bella juice page.

The Cornell degree and a label with red hair on it

Marisa Sergi, the founders daughter, went to Cornell and came home with a degree in viticulture and enology, which is the technical end of grape growing and winemaking rather than the marketing end. She put in a year at the largest winery in the world first. Then in 2016 she moved home and launched her own label, originally Redhead Wine and now Red’s. Putting a red headed winemaker on the front of the bottle was a marketing decision, but the wine still had to earn the shelf. The Red Blend and Sweet Rose have picked up awards and, according to her own accounting, distribution in nine states.

Forbes named her to the 30 Under 30 list in 2023. She also serves as an Entrepreneur In Residence at the Cornell School of Hotel Administration, working with hospitality founders who are running into the same problems she already worked through. Her full background is on her LinkedIn profile.

Selling wine out of the trunk, then pitching Walmart

The part of the story that gets skipped is the middle. Before any of the national distribution existed, Marisa drove store to store selling her wine by hand, one account at a time, for years. That is unglamorous work and most people quit somewhere in it.

The break came through Walmart Open Call, the pitch event where small suppliers get a shot at a buyer. She got the authorization. That single yes gave the company a platform and the credibility to push multiple brands into new markets, and it changed what the business was allowed to imagine for itself.

Buying the family company in May 2020

May 2020 was not a calm month to buy a hospitality business. That is when Marisa and her husband Evan Schumann acquired L’uva Bella from her parents, with Evan stepping in as President. Rather than hunker down and wait it out, they pushed into national expansion. The winery has since been named Ohio Winery of the Year at the New York International Wine Competition.

There is also a head chef on staff who goes by Red, which at a winery founded on a redhead brand is either a coincidence or very good casting.

Money followed. The company has since taken a seven figure equity investment from InvestBev Group and put roughly a million dollars into expanding the Lowellville facility, which is what you do when demand is running ahead of what your tanks can produce. The bench filled out too. Garrett Lattanzio runs operations and winemaking and Delanie Bianco handles sales and marketing.

Four labels, one production floor

Most small wineries run one label and hope it sticks. This one runs four, each aimed at a different shelf and a different buyer.

• L’uva Bella Reserve Collection is the flagship line, available through the online shop.
• Purple Collection has its own home at purplerainwine.com.
• Passion Collection leans into Italian flair and lives at passionwines.us.
• Red’s Collection is the label Marisa started in 2016, at redswines.us.

Running four brands out of one facility is a different animal than running one winery with four SKUs. Every label carries its own artwork, its own distributor conversation, its own price point, and its own compliance footprint the moment it crosses a state line.

The tasting room and the bistro

The Lowellville property at 6597 Center Rd is not a warehouse with a folding table in front. There is a full tasting room, a casual full service bistro, wine club memberships, and a regular event calendar. If you are anywhere near the Youngstown area it is an easy afternoon. Start with the visit page, check the upcoming events, or look at the wine club options.

Day to day updates land on Instagram and on the Facebook page. The winery is also listed in the state Ohio Wines directory.

The paperwork nobody puts on the label

Here is the part of wine growth that does not photograph well. A winery that manufactures, brokers, imports, or ships direct to consumers usually has to post a surety bond with each state it wants to sell into. The bond is not insurance protecting the winery. It is a financial guarantee to the state that excise taxes get paid and that the license holder follows the alcohol beverage rules. If the state gets stiffed, the state collects on the bond, and the winery pays the surety back.

Requirements are all over the map. Georgia requires a Winery Manufacturer Broker Importer Tax bond. Illinois has a separate Winery Shipper bond. New York, Virginia, Washington, and Oregon each have their own version at their own limits. A brand selling in ten states can be carrying several of these at the same time, which is why expansion in the wine business is as much a licensing project as it is a sales project.

Anyone who wants to compare those requirements state by state can look them up  at AmericasSuretyBonds.com.

The short version

A juice business in a garage became a distributor. A daughter went to Cornell, came back, and sold her own wine store to store until Walmart said yes. Then she bought the company from her parents in the worst possible month and grew it anyway. That is a better story than most of what is printed on the back of a wine label, and it happens to be true.

Disclosure: this article is informational only. We do not endorse, vouch for, recommend, or have any business relationship with the companies or people mentioned beyond the writing of this article. All trademarks and brand names belong to their respective owners. Nothing here is legal, tax, or licensing advice, and bond requirements change, so verify current requirements with the applicable state agency.